Ebb tide nd-14

by Ричард Вудмен

  In the wake of this exodus, the ship sank into a state of suspension, the silence along her decks eerie to those who had known them crowded with men and full of the buzz of human occupation.

  Responsibility for the ship now fell upon the standing warrant officers, for Drinkwater's acting commission ceased the day Cyclops decommissioned, and in the absence of a master, the gunner was the senior. Drinkwater remained on board unofficially, his sole purpose in lingering to augment his knowledge and study, for he had received word from the Trinity House that he could attend for examination in a little over a fortnight and he was determined to secure at the very least a certificate as master as soon as possible. With the approval of the gunner, he therefore remained in the gunroom, and in that now echoing space once loud with Devaux and Wheeler's discourse, he unrolled Blackmore's charts and studied the legacy the old man had left him. Apart from a treatise on navigation, Drinkwater had found a dictionary and, to his surprise, some works of poetry. Somehow the memory of the sailing master and his didactic lectures on the mysteries of lunar distances did not square with the love-poems of Herrick and Rochester. Oddly, though, there seemed a strange, almost sinister message from beyond the grave implicit in a slim anthology which contained a work by Richard Kempenfelt. He read a couplet out loud:

  Worlds and worlds round suns most distant roll,

  And thought perplexes, but uplifts the soul ...

  This discovery briefly diverted his thoughts to Elizabeth and the book of hers that he had found containing a hymn of the admiral's. But it was the manuscript books which most fascinated Drinkwater for, from his first appointment as second mate of a merchantman, Blackmore had kept notebooks containing details of anchorages and ports and the dangers of their approaches, of landfalls, conspicuous features, leads through swatchways and gatways, and the exhibited lights and daymarks of lighthouses and alarm vessels. Interspersed with the carefully scribed text were exquisite drawings, some washed in with water-colours, which turned these compendiums into private rutters of sailing directions. It was a double surprise to find these talents in the old man, filling Drinkwater with a profound regret that he had not done so earlier, that he had in some way failed the dead man. The discovery of these things after Blackmore's death laid a poignant burden upon him, a feeling of lost opportunity.

  To the inhabitants of the cockpit as a whole, Blackmore had been a fussy old woman whose interest in versines, Napier's logarithms and plane sailing were as obsessive as they were boring. Fortunately Drinkwater had not found them so, and as a result had benefited from Blackmore's patiently shared experience. He was too young to know that such enthusiasm was enough for Blackmore and had decided the dying man to leave his professional papers to his aptest pupil.

  Drinkwater turned the pages of Blackmore's rutters. They charted the dead man's life from the Gulf of Riga to the Dardanelles. There were notes on anchorages on the coasts of Kurland and Corsica, on ice in the Baltic and on the currents in the Strait of Gibraltar. There were notes of the approaches to Stralsund and some complex clearing marks off Ushant. There were observations on Blackmore's native Harwich Harbour, and on the Rivers Humber and Mersey, together with a neat chartlet of the Galuda River in South Carolina. Drinkwater shuddered. He remembered the Galuda too well, its mosquitoes, its dead and the manner of their dying. He did not care to think of such things and dismissed them from his mind. In an effort to concentrate, he wrote to Elizabeth, then bent himself to his studies.

  Trinity House was an impressive building, situated on the rising ground of Tower Hill. Iron railings provided a forecourt to the stone façade, the ground floor of which comprised an arched entrance with Ionic columns supporting a plain entablature pierced by tall windows. These in turn were interspersed with ornate embellishments comprising the Corporation's arms and the medallions of King George III and Queen Charlotte, together with representations of nautical instruments and lighthouses. The Elder Brethren who formed the ruling court of this ancient body, as well as licensing pilots and buoying out the Thames Estuary, the Downs and Yarmouth Roads, and generally overseeing their own and private lighthouses, also examined the proficiency of candidates seeking warrants as masters or mates in the Royal Navy.

  It was a contentious matter, for to command a brig-sloop or unrated ship of less than twenty guns, a lieutenant or commander was supposed to have passed an examination before the Elder Brethren of the Trinity House. Indeed, implicit in the very rank 'Master and Commander' was lodged an acknowledgement of navigational skill, allowing the holder the courtesy title of 'Captain', without the confirmed and irreversible rights attaching to that of 'Post-Captain'. Therein lay the rub. Despite the fact that the Brethren were mariners of experience, all having commanded ships, and in spite of the Corporation being empowered by Royal Charter, they were themselves merchant masters. Officers holding commissions from the King considered that to submit to such examination was an affront to their dignity. Thus the exigencies of service at sea and abroad, and the expediences of special cases, combined with the more powerful influences of blood and interest almost to negate the wise provision of this regulation. It was, therefore, unfortunately observed mostly in the breach. The resulting ineptitude of many commissioned officers as navigators had frequently caused danger to naval ships and ensured continuing employment for those men brought up in merchantmen, whose humbler path led them into the navy as masters and mates. These men had their certificates from the Trinity House and their warrants from the Navy Board but, competent though they might be, commissioned they were not.

  Strictly according to regulation, a midshipman was not permitted to act as prize-master unless he had passed for master's mate and thus demonstrated his competence to bring his prize safely into port. A mixture of luck and expedience had secured Drinkwater his own warrant as master's mate when he had served briefly in the Corporation's yacht under Captain Poulter. At the time she had been flying the flag of Captain Anthony Calvert, an Elder Brother on his way to the westward from Plymouth, and Calvert had obtained a certificate for the young Midshipman Drinkwater. Despite this brief service in the Corporation's buoy-yacht, this was the first time Drinkwater had visited the elegant headquarters on Tower Hill, built by Samuel Wyatt.

  Drinkwater was shown to a seat in an ante-room by a dark-suited clerk. An Indian carpet deadened all sound except the measured and mesmeric ticking of a tall long-case clock which showed the phases of the moon. On one wall a magnificently wrought painting by Thomas Butterworth depicted a ship being broken to pieces under beetling cliffs. Drinkwater rose and studied the picture more closely. It was of the Ramillus whose wrecking, Drinkwater recalled being told, was due to the errors made by her sailing master. The thought was uncomfortable and he turned, only to gaze into the forbidding stare of a pendulous bellied master-mariner whose portrait glared from under a full peruke wig. The mariner pointed to a chart on an adjacent table upon which were also a telescope and a quadrant. Beyond lay a distant view of an old ship, leaning to a gale.

  'This way, sir.' The clerk's appearance made Drinkwater jump. Nervously gathering up his papers, he followed the man into an adjacent but larger chamber. Here more ancient sea-captains stared down at him, and a seductive view of a British factory somewhere, Drinkwater guessed, on the coast of India, occupied one entire wall. In the background, surrounded by green palm trees and some native huts, lay the grim embrasures of a dun-coloured fort above which British colours lifted languidly. In the foreground three Indiamen lay at anchor, with a fourth in the process of getting under weigh, while native boats plied between them. Between Drinkwater and the painting there was a long table upon which lay some books, charts, rules and dividers. Gingerly Drinkwater laid his papers alongside them on the gleaming mahogany.

  A moment later a man in a plain blue coat with red cuffs, white breeches and hose, his hair powdered and tied in a queue, strode briskly into the room. Drinkwater recognized him as Captain Calvert.

  'Mr Drinkwater, good morning. I recall our p
revious meeting. You caused me a deal of trouble.'

  'I did sir?' Drinkwater's surprise was unfeigned. Such a beginning was unfortunate.

  'The Navy Board wished you to sit a proper examination before they granted your warrant and referred the matter back to this House. I said you had passed a better examination than most of your ilk and the matter became a shuttlecock until they relented and issued you your warrant.'

  'I had no idea, sir,' Drinkwater said. 'You must think me an ingrate for not thanking you properly'

  'Not at all. It was a point of principle between us and the gentlemen in the Strand.' Calvert waved Drinkwater's embarrassment aside and asked for his journals.

  'I do not have them, sir,' he began as Calvert looked up sharply and withdrew his expectant hand. 'I was ordered to present myself for examination as lieutenant aboard the Royal George on the fatal morning she capsized, sir ...' He paused and passed across the table a slim volume of manuscript. 'This is what I have done subsequently.'

  'So you were one of the few to escape?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'And would have passed for lieutenant otherwise?'

  'I entertained that hope, yes, sir.'

  'We are more exacting here, Mr Drinkwater. A master's certificate is not so easily come by.'

  Calvert drew the book towards him and turned its pages with maddening slowness while Drinkwater sat, endeavouring to mask his nervousness. When he had finished, Calvert closed the book and looked up. 'Well, sir, you seem to have committed some knowledge to paper, let us determine to what extent you have retained it elsewhere.'

  Drinkwater's mouth felt dry.

  'How many methods are there to determine longitude?'

  'Two, sir. By chronometer and by lunar distances.'

  'And which would you employ?'

  'The former, sir, though I have tried the latter.'

  'And on what grounds do you favour the former method?'

  'It is less complex and better suited to shipboard observations now that the necessary ephemerides are available.'

  Calvert nodded. 'Very well. Pray, explain the principle of observation by chronometer.' Drinkwater launched himself into an explanation of the hour-angle problem, discoursing on polar distances and right ascensions. He had hardly finished before Calvert threw him a simple query about latitude. Drinkwater hesitated, sensing a trap, but then answered.

  Without reacting, Calvert continued: 'You are asked by your commander to advise him of the best time for a cutting-out operation. On what would you base your response?'

  Drinkwater's mind went obligingly blank. He had survived one such attempt by a French ship when Cyclops had been anchored in the Galuda. He remembered it only as a wild night of gun flashes, sword thrusts, shouts and mayhem.

  'Come, come, Mr Drinkwater, this is not so difficult, surely?' Calvert prompted impatiently. 'Employ your imagination a little before you are dead with indecision.'

  'I er, I should require a dark night... I should, er, make a study of any dangers to navigation and endeavour to supply sufficient details of these and any clearing marks which might aid the passage of boats ... Oh, and I should seek to make such an attempt when the tides were most favourable, particularly for bringing the prize out.'

  'Very well.' Calvert unfolded a chart and, turning it, pushed it across the table. He also indicated an almanac, a sheet of paper and a pencil. 'I wish to make such an attempt on a vessel lying in Camaret Road within the next week. When should I carry it out?'

  Drinkwater bent to his task. Calvert presumed he knew the location of Camaret Road which was unfortunate, because he was not certain, but he soon found it near Brest and began the calculation that would give him a moonless night with the most favourable tide. It took him fifteen minutes to resolve the problem satisfactorily. An ebb tide out of the Iroise and a dark night gave him three possibilities and he chose the first on the grounds that if the operation failed or the weather was inclement, he would have two alternatives. Calvert expressed his approval and went on to ask him more questions, questions concerned with anchoring and sail-handling.

  After further calculations, Calvert asked to be 'conducted verbally in a frigate from Plymouth Sound to St Mary's Road, Scilly'. It was a chink of daylight, for both men knew Drinkwater had made such a passage in the Trinity yacht all those months earlier. Drinkwater expatiated on the manoeuvre of weighing from Plymouth and standing out clear of the Draystone, of avoiding the Eddystone and the lethal, unmarked danger of the Wolf Rock, which he cleared by a bearing on the twin lights of the Lizard. Finally he recalled the leading marks for entering the shelter of St Mary's Road, keeping clear of the Spanish and Bartholomew Ledges.

  Some questions followed about the stowage and storage of stores and cordage, an area of unfamiliarity to the candidate. Calvert asked, 'How would you stow kegs of spirits, Mr Drinkwater?'

  Drinkwater havered. Did the significance of the question lie in the fact that the commodity concerned was spirituous? Or that it was in kegs? Clearly Calvert, a merchant master by trade, regarded it with some importance, as if a trick lay in its apparent simplicity. Then a magic formula occurred to Drinkwater, one he had heard Blackmore use frequently. Though he had never thought to employ it himself, being unsure of its precise meaning, its purpose struck him now. He ventured it in a blaze of comprehension. 'I should ensure they were wedged bung-up and bilge-free, sir.'

  'Excellent. That will do very well, Mr Drinkwater. I desire you to wait in the ante-room. I shall fill out your certificate and you may present it to the Comptroller's clerks at Somerset House. I would not be too sanguine of an immediate appointment in a sixth-rate with the war ending, though.' Calvert smiled and held out his hand.

  'I am not anticipating any such luck, Captain Calvert,' Drinkwater replied, taking Calvert's hand. 'I shall seek a berth in a merchant ship. I am anxious to marry and have been advised that opportunities in Liverpool are more likely.'

  Calvert nodded. 'A fellow like you would be of considerable use in a slaver, no doubt of it. Well, good day to you. Pray wait a moment next door and I shall have my clerk bring you your paper.'

  Drinkwater gathered up his documents as Calvert left the room. He returned to the ante-room and picked up his hat. He would go home to Barnet tonight, and see his mother and brother, then write again to Elizabeth with the news. He could afford to visit her before he went to Liverpool in search of a ship. Though greatly tempted, he forbore from winking at the pot-bellied mariner still gazing sternly down into the room. He was well pleased with himself and promised that before he made for Barnet, he would indulge himself with a meat-pie and a bottle in one of the eating houses nearby.

  The clock ticked and the minutes drew into a quarter of an hour.

  He supposed Calvert had been distracted on some important matter and settled himself to wait. After another quarter of an hour, he found himself incapable of sitting still and instead rose and began to study the wreck of the Ramillies under Bolt Head, but even this did not absorb him and he started to pace the carpet with mounting impatience.

  At last, after what seemed an interminable delay, the clerk reappeared, but he bore no paper, only a summons that Drinkwater should wait a few moments more. After a further interval of ten minutes, Calvert reappeared.

  'Mr Drinkwater,' Calvert said solemnly, so that Drinkwater imagined the very worst, 'the damndest coincidence, don't ye know ...'

  'You have the advantage of me, sir.'

  'I have kept you kicking your heels, Mr Drinkwater, because news has just come in from Gravesend that the Buoy Warden requires the services of a mate in the Argus. It occurred to me that, were you so inclined and bearing in mind your intention to marry, the post might have fallen vacant at a providential moment.' Calvert paused, allowing Drinkwater to digest the fact that he was being made an offer of employment.

  'The inordinate delay, I'm afraid, was occasioned by the urgent necessity to establish whether or not another officer, who had been half promised the next vacancy,
still wished to take up our earlier offer. Happily, in view of the Peace, he has declined, and sails a week hence in a West Indiaman.' Calvert smiled. 'So there, sir. What d'ye say, eh?'

  Drinkwater stammered his delighted acceptance.

  Nathaniel Drinkwater and Elizabeth Bower were married in her father's parish church on a warm, late autumn day in 1783 during a short furlough taken by the groom. The Peace of Paris had been concluded two months earlier in September, and Drinkwater settled to his work in the service of the Trinity House, rising rapidly to mate. His wife stayed with her father for the first eighteen months of their marriage until his death in 1785. She then removed to London and took rooms in Whitechapel where she interested herself in a charitable institution. Drinkwater maintained a correspondence with Richard White, whose promotion to lieutenant and appointment to a frigate on the Halifax station he learned of in the summer of the following year.

  Drinkwater also remained in contact with Lord Dungarth who on several occasions asked Drinkwater to dine with him in his modest town house. The two men were both interested in hydrographical surveying and Lord Dungarth had been asked by the Royal Society to evaluate the quality of charts then available to the Royal Navy and British merchant ships.

  His Lordship moved in illustrious circles compared with the indigent and struggling Drinkwater, but he entertained his guest without condescension, increasingly appreciating his judgement and acknowledging his professional skills. As for Drinkwater himself, he gradually forgot his naval aspirations.

  PART TWO

  High Water

  Without careful and patient observation, the culmination of the tide is a moment so fleeting that it is soon gone, leaving only the mark of its passing as it falls.